Category Archives: Cloud Computing

Embracing The Cloud

We love the stories of big complacent industry leaders having their positions sledge hammered by nimble cloud-based competitors. Saleforce.com chews up Oracle’s CRM business. Airbnb has a bigger market cap than Marriott. Amazon crushes Walmart (and pretty much every other retailer). We say: “How could they have not seen this coming?” But, more frequently what you are really looking at is more like death by a thousand cuts. Cloud makes this easy to do but tough to see coming.

By now, we have all heard about the dynamics involved in the Innovator’s Dilemma. The big boys’ very customers, processes, people and structure make them blind to the threat until it is too late. Seeing beyond this takes a special insight and doing something about it takes even greater strength. We applaud when we hear the stories of traditional industry leaders who can bite the bullet and recognize the world has changed. GE, a 124-year-old industrial manufacturer, goes whole hog on the cloud and the Internet of Things. Likewise, Capital One, in the very conservative banking and financial services arena, is making the leap.

But for all those great forward thinkers most are still complacent. Even today researchers report that only 5% of companies have really embraced the digital innovation fostered by cloud computing. For the other 95%, their fates do not look good. The tenure on the list of the S&P 500 grows shorter and shorter. In 1960, it was 60 years; by 2020 it will be 12 years, a five-fold reduction. Cloud was not around in the early part of that cycle but today it accounts for the ever-increasing acceleration of the trend.

Value now is created today through innovations in offerings and processes based upon digital technologies. Cloud-based platforms and tools cost-effectively enable creating those innovations. Failing fast is relatively cheap. When you shut down the platform you stop paying for it. You are not burdened with any sunk costs. Collaboration tools are available as Software as a Service (SaaS) and are inexpensive or free while intuitively easy to use. Rapid, demonstrable outcomes are achieved through agile development disciplines based on these platforms and tools. Venture Capitalists (VC’s) love this since investment requirements are low meaning they can make lots of bets and the returns of just a few winners can be staggering.

This leads to lots and lots of small investments in point solutions that enable hundreds of startups to deconstruct and disrupt the value chain of established industry leaders. This is the death of a thousand cuts. Just take a look at the Financial Technology (Fintech) phenomena. Venture Scanner is tracking 1,379 Fintech companies being funded by VC’s to the tune of over $33 Billion. Each one is focused on just one slice of the traditional business.

A few of the big banks are scrambling to respond. Citibank’s own research estimates that these Fintech companies will own 17% of all consumer banking by 2023 for annual revenues of $203Billion. Some of that is new revenue from new consumers but a lot of it is coming out of the hide of the current industry leaders. And if that isn’t enough to get your attention, Citibank also estimates that Fintech will wipe out one-third of all employment at traditional banks in just ten years.

Fintech is just one example. It seems like nothing is immune. CB Insights reports that even an area like legal services has 50 start-ups cutting away at the different professional services. Likewise, while self-driving tech receives the lion’s share of media attention, a host of less-heralded startups are targeting specific pieces of automotive infrastructure or components. Even consumer packaged goods from the likes of P&G are under assault.

Pretty sobering isn’t it? Pick any industry and you will see the same phenomena. Go ahead try it, especially for your industry. All made possible through the advent of cloud services. What are you going to do? The first step is to understand and acknowledge the threat. Until you admit that you will be at a loss to respond. But, at least you will be in good company with the 95% of most firms. Of course, it will be relatively short-lived.

AI and Blockchain Technology

The field of artificial intelligence (AI) had progressed rapidly in the last ten years, though first recognized in the 1950s. From autonomous motor vehicles to digital personal assistants, the technology is making its way into a variety of industries, enabling better task automation, language processing, and data analytics. But more recently, AI is evolving to allow for experiential learning and improved functioning. The financial industry recognized the benefits of AI early on, and AI driven analytics across big data already provides us with insights into financial performances through intelligence that might otherwise be considered unrelated.

AI Cultivating Superior Traders

Some fintech startups are already encouraging the use of AI in the retail sector, and it’s suggested that combining such technology with hands-on experience will produce ‘enhanced traders.’ As financial institutions invest in advanced forms of AI, technology that uses deep machine learning and cognitive systems, complex algorithms allow for reasoning capabilities capable of improving business performance. Already Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo and IBM’s Watson have demonstrated their expertise, training and learning from their mistakes much as people do, but evolving beyond the experts.

AI tools, of course, have the advantage over humans of requiring no downtime nor any expectations of interest in the work they do; as such, learning and training are much quicker and illimitable.

Fintech Advancing with AI, Big Data, and Blockchain

In collaboration with Nest Hong Kong, DBS Bank Hong Kong has launched its second DBS Accelerator program, supporting innovative fintech startups. Says Sebastian Paredes, CEO of DBS Bank Hong Kong, “Fintech innovations in artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, and more are spurring many exciting breakthroughs that will shape the way consumers and corporations transact and interact.”

But it isn’t only dynamic startups coming up with original fintech projects. IBM is currently working to merge AI and blockchain into a powerful prototype. Tim Hahn, IBM’s chief architect in charge of Internet of Things security, has spent the first part of this year focused on bringing together AI computer Watson and the blockchain. Says Hahn, “What we’re doing with blockchain and devices is enabling the information those devices supply to effect the blockchain…You begin to approach the kind of things we see in movies.” Though Hahn notes that it’s still “early days” and the team is still experimenting with prototypes, an early feature investigated allows device owners to register on the blockchain using smart contracts, create varied tiers of access, and provide differing functionality to users through personalization.

Security, of course, is a constant concern, and at 2016’s InterConnect conference on mobile and cloud technology, Hahn discussed how the Watson Internet of Things platform might help avoid business risks. Says Hahn, “I don’t think blockchain and security are synonymous. They might be related, but they’re certainly not synonymous functions. One does not beget the other. There’s plenty ways to insecurely use the blockchain.”

Fintech AI Solutions Already in Play

Several AI solutions already exist in the fintech sector. Wealthfront, a California-based robotic advisor tracks account activity with its AI capabilities, analyzing how clients use and invest their money with the goal of providing more suitable financial advice. And Luvo, a technology developed by RBS, helps service agents answer customer queries, not only quickly searching through databases but using its artificial intelligence and ‘human personality’ to learn and improve itself. Though ideas and early innovations are now more regularly coming to light in the fintech environment, it’s safe to say that for the moment, a collaboration of both human agents and AI imbued robots offer the soundest solutions, and for a little while yet, the most comfortable.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service Security

It’s no secret many organizations rely on popular cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft for access to computing infrastructure. The many perks of cloud services, such as the ability to quickly scale resources without the upfront cost of buying physical servers, have helped build a multibillion-dollar cloud industry that continues to grow each year.

Still, even though cloud has helped many companies, there are tradeoffs with cloud services such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) that organizations need to be aware of. With IaaS, a cloud provider maintains basic IT infrastructure such as servers, storage, and networks on your behalf, which is convenient but also raises concerns at the same time.

Case in point, in the 2016 Spiceworks report Diving into IT Cloud Services, 52 percent of IT professionals surveyed said loss of control over infrastructure is a barrier to moving IT services to the cloud. In the same survey, the majority of IT pros also said the risk of security breach is a top concern with cloud services. Additionally, 36 percent of respondents were worried about the risk of data loss and keeping cloud costs under control.

Why are IT pros worried about cloud security?

With on-premises infrastructure, you have complete visibility and control over everything. You can physically see your infrastructure, and if something goes wrong, you have the power and ability to take immediate actions to fix issues.

But with cloud services, you need to trust your provider to properly secure your environment and respond to any security incidents in a timely manner, and as the data shows, many IT departments are hesitant to relinquish control and are afraid of outages or data loss that might occur in the cloud.

Adding to the worries, if a security incident occurs on cloud infrastructure, there’s sometimes confusion over who’s ultimately responsible for addressing the problem because there’s shared security responsibility between you and the provider. Who needs to take actions to remedy an issue depends on where in the stack the security incident actually occurred. Therefore, it’s critical for cloud users to know who’s responsible for what.

How IaaS security responsibilities are divided

The two dominant cloud players, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, have both documented what they are responsible for as cloud providers when it comes to security. For example, in their shared responsibility model, Amazon Web Services has helpfully broken AWS security responsibilities into two main buckets:

Protecting the physical networking, compute, and storage resources, so you don’t have to worry about setting up servers or storage hardware, patching firmware, or installing and properly disposing of drives, etc.

How security responsibilities differ between Iaas, PaaS, and SaaS

Microsoft also draws a clear line that separates what cloud service providers and cloud customers are responsible for. Their March 2016 document entitled Shared Responsibilities for Cloud Computing goes one step further by breaking down responsibility areas across different cloud models including IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.

With all three service models, the cloud provider is solely responsible for physical security of infrastructure. And like with AWS all Azure users, regardless of what cloud model they take advantage of, are responsible for data classification and availability to make sure sensitive customer data is properly handled across all of the cloud models. But there are varying degrees of responsibility when it comes to end-point protection, identity & access management, application level controls, network controls, and host infrastructure. As a general rule of thumb, the more control over infrastructure you have, the more security responsibility you have as well, with IaaS providing the most control and responsibility, followed by PaaS, and then SaaS.

How to stay on top of cloud security

In summary, a first step towards securing cloud infrastructure and data is understanding what you’re responsible for so you can take appropriate action. The cloud providers try to make this very clear so you know what you’re getting into when you sign up for their services.

But just because the providers make some promises, you still need to be careful. Providers like Amazon Web services and Azure are not typically on the hook for data loss or a breach due to labor disputes, utility failures, natural disasters, orders of government, or acts of terrorism or war. They also include language in their service agreements that state you are still responsible for backing up and archiving your content in case of a disaster… so even when the cloud provider is on the hook for security, you still need a solid “plan B” just in case.

By Peter Tsai, IT Analyst at Spiceworks

Formerly a systems administrator, programmer, and server engineer who has lived IT from the inside and out, Peter now works to serve up IT articles, reports, infographics, and livecasts that inform and entertain millions of IT pros in the Spiceworks Community worldwide.

Cloud Computing Trends

Now that we are a little more than halfway through 2016, many experts are beginning to make their predictions about cloud computing for the rest of the year and beyond. While many of the trends aren’t too unexpected (the ever increasing acceptance of cloud solutions by businesses, for instance) other trends are a bit more surprising.

With so many changes in how people are using cloud infrastructure and applications, and as many businesses ramp up their planning for 2017, it’s useful to take a look at some of the cloud computing trends currently taking shape.

Microsoft Azure Continues to Grow

The three largest players in the cloud computing sphere continue to be Amazon; Google; and Microsoft, which offers the Azure cloud computing platform. These computing giants have created infrastructure that allows business software to run at higher scales with better availability and performance without the hassles of maintaining a data center or the tedious process of creating a dedicated infrastructure.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been the leader in the development platform world for several years primarily by virtue of being first to offer SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS capabilities, but Microsoft’s Azure is quickly catching up. Azure allows the deployment of applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed data centers that offer 99.5 percent uptime. Getting started with Azure is easy, since applications can be developed via a variety of technologies like ASP.net, PHP, and Node.js, and the platform is capable of hosting Apache Tomcat servers and JVMs, as well as SQL Azure database services.

Azure is still second to AWS in terms of revenue and market share, but there is some speculation that it’s growing faster than AWS and will eventually either match or overtake Amazon in the realm of cloud services.

Cloud Brokerages Are Becoming More Common

Hybrid cloud computing continues to be one of the biggest trends in enterprise, with more and more companies choosing to deploy new applications in the public cloud while maintaining existing applications on-premises. This changing environment is creating challenges and opportunities for legacy vendors, many of whom are beginning to label themselves as cloud brokers.

In other words, these vendors are offering additional value-added services to help companies select the right locations for application deployment, design applications so they can operate properly in that location, help manage multiple deployment locations via software, and manage their cloud-based applications. Essentially, many vendors will be adding what amounts to consulting services to their array of services as a means to remain relevant in the new environment.

Increased Cloud Spending

According to Gartner, cloud spending continues to increase this year, with the most recent projections predicting an increase of more than 16 percent this year, bringing total spending to $204 billion. The greatest increase in spending continues to be in IaaS, with SaaS coming in a close second.

The Question Shifts From Infrastructure to Applications

For the last few years, much of the discussion surrounding the cloud has been focused on the infrastructure aspect: Public, private, or hybrid? At this point, many IT departments have realized that attempting to compete with the infrastructure offerings of the major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, and the like) is fruitless, and that resources are better spent in the development and deployment of applications. The question now becomes determining the best and fastest infrastructure and then turning the focus to application development.

Security Is Still a Concern

While concerns about the interoperability and reliability of the cloud have diminished considerably over the last few years, there are still some concerns about security and privacy when it comes to using the technology in the enterprise. In fact, security concerns continue to be the most significant barrier to cloud adoption; concerns about regulatory compliance, privacy, complexity, and being locked into contracts and services are the other most common reasons that companies are resistant to the cloud.

As a relatively new technology, there is bound to be some significant change and development in the realm of cloud computing this year and well into the future. Undoubtedly, the landscape a year from now will be different than it is today, making this one of the most exciting times to work in IT — as well as one of the most challenging.

Healthcare IoT Security

It’s obvious that IoT can make the entire healthcare industry more efficient. The kind of data involved can be used to save time, physical energy and operating costs.

Because of this, devices that facilitate medical data are becoming more commonplace in the industry. This includes things such as wearables that can track a patient’s vitals remotely, tags and trackers for onsite equipment monitoring, medical resources on mobile and more.

And these are just a few general examples. You can bet that over time more technology will crop up that makes the lives of healthcare professionals easier. But along with the rise of these technologies and devices comes the need for security.

The Growing Need for IoT Security

Given the addition of new IoT devices in recent years, it makes perfect sense, then, why Market Research has estimated that healthcare IoT security will grow by 40 percent from 2016 to 2021.

With the recent IoT security market estimated at $4.7 billion with revenue of up to $2.2 billion, you can clearly see it has the potential for such growth. Healthcare IoT Security is expected to grow right alongside the medical IoT market, which has grown in popularity and necessity quite rapidly.

Health Care Monitoring And How IoT Improve It

There are many IoT applications that can be used to monitor a patient’s health, such as Future Path Medical’s UroSense. It measures the urine of catheterized patients to report crucial information, like body temperature. The data syncs to a nursing station or mobile device, allowing professionals to watch patients remotely.

Not all these devices are connected directly to the internet. Sometimes they tap into a local network to sync data. Even so, they can still be vulnerable.

This is exactly why healthcare IoT security is growing so fast. As more medical equipment becomes IoT-enabled, more security is necessary.

Just a single device like UroSense can identify signs of kidney injury, heart failure, infections, diabetes, tumors, sepsis and more. That’s why it’s much better – and more efficient – to have these kind of IoT-enabled devices in place as opposed to removing IoT from health care entirely. Health care professionals have access to transmitted data no matter where they are, exactly when they need it, which is hugely important for the success and improvement of modern day medicine.

Google, for instance, has come up with a contact lens that can identify a patient’s blood glucose levels. This makes monitoring diabetes much easier – and less painful for patients.

Additionally, powerful and surprisingly accurate equipment tracking in hospitals allows staff to locate resources quickly. Centrak is one company that specialized in real-time locating systems (or RTLS) in the healthcare industry. In an emergency situation, real-time reporting systems like this can save lives because staff members don’t have to search for the critical resources they need, wasting precious minutes.

Securing The Future Of Connected Things

This kind of sensitive data requires a great deal of security, especially in an age where cyber attacks are commonplace. Then there’s the matter of HIPAA – the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. By law, all electronically created, synced, maintained or transmitted patient data must be protected.

More importantly, patient privacy is also a viable concern. This involves making sure the appropriate parties have access to the data in question, and no one else. A breach of privacy or security is detrimental to everyone, including patients and health care providers.

Simply put, a majority of devices and systems – including those in the healthcare industry – are connected to the internet of things. And, as our connected technologies continue to evolve, so too must the security we place around them. Forty-seven billion dollars is no small number. Hopefully 2021 will prove to us once and for all that we can have our connected world, without sacrificing all of our personal data in the process.

Zoho News

According to Gartner, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software market grew by 12.3% from $23.4 billion in 2014 to $26.3 billion in 2015. Suggests Julian Poulter, research director at Gartner, “The merger and acquisition activity that began flowing through the market in 2009 continued in 2015, with more than 30 notable acquisitions. This has resulted in increased competition at the top end of the CRM market, with the continued focus of global vendors’ sales forces driving good growth worldwide in all CRM sub-segments but only for cloud or software as a service (SaaS) applications.” Today, one innovative player in the CRM market announces product updates and advanced additions to their product line that will challenge what businesses currently expect and accept from their CRM solutions.

Zoho

Zoho has a 20-year history over which time the private company has expanded into 130 countries, embracing cloud technologies, developing its own business applications, and notably producing Zoho CRM, its best-selling solution. However, this dynamic company doesn’t view success as a reason to rest, but instead their 20 million user base can be attributed to continued pioneering product development covering areas such as social media, account and financial management, collaboration, and much more.

The First Multichannel CRM

Unveiling what they identify as ‘the industry’s first multi channel customer relationship management software’ today, the latest version of Zoho CRM supports email, social media, live chat, and telephonic communication. CloudTweaks was invited to an early demo of this advanced system update, and from the revamped user interface to Gamescope helping sales teams close more deals, more often, we’re impressed. Users now have access to the latest multichannel support such as SalesSignals which keeps salespeople informed, in real time, of customer action across various channels including support tickets, satisfaction surveys, and social media. Further, updates to usability involve the new minimalist interface which includes Timeline View of customers’ historical data and interactions, and Advanced Filters helping users probe CRM data more efficiently.

CRM and Communication

Possibly the most exciting development is the unique convergence of CRM software with email. SalesInbox reinvents the manner in which salespeople use email with the integration of Zoho CRM and their dedicated mail client designed specifically for salespeople.

Discussing the revolution of SalesInbox with CloudTweaks, Raju Vegesna, chief evangelist of Zoho, explains “Zoho has been well ahead when it comes to email and CRM integrations. We were able to do this because we are one of only two vendors in the market to offer email hosting and CRM together (the other being Microsoft). We have taken the expertise from both sides and built an application from the ground up – an email client for salespeople.”

Vegesna points out that email clients have, for the last few decades, represented a broad range of users including sales, marketing, accounts, consumers, and individuals in their private capacities. Yet the actual email clients utilized have heretofore offered no differentiation based on these very different categories of user. Says Vegesna, “For the first time, we’re introducing a specialized email client, built from the ground up, optimized for salespeople.”

Online Education Growth

There’s no doubt that the internet has changed the face of education over the last two decades. In fact, by some estimates more than 80 percent of college students expect to take at least some — if not all of their courses — online. Thousands of people have earned degrees without ever setting foot on a campus, and the number continues to grow.

Online education’s explosive popularity is due to a number of factors, not the least of which is the convenience of taking courses on your own time and from the comfort of home. Much of online education’s growth is also attributable to the cloud, which has created opportunities and efficiencies that make online learning an appealing and affordable option for both students and universities — and it continues to change the learning landscape for the better, particularly those studying in the technology disciplines.

1. Significant Cost Savings

No one can deny that college is expensive. A four-year degree at a private college can cost well over six figures, leaving students with extreme debt after graduation. Most universities are looking to trim budgets and operating costs wherever they can to ease that burden, and the cloud is part of that effort. In fact, more than half of universities believe that the cloud can help improve efficiencies. More specifically, the cloud can reduce costs by:

Providing more computing power via virtual servers for less cost than investing in more infrastructure.

Providing lower cost collaboration tools for both students and administration.

Reducing textbook costs. Rather than purchase expensive textbooks that are quickly outdated, students can access cloud-based texts for much less, and access them on multiple devices.

Reduced computing costs for students. Most cloud-based education applications can be accessed on any device, meaning that students aren’t required to purchase expensive computers or other equipment for their studies.

Low cost applications and storage. SaaS models allow students to purchase subscriptions for cloud-based versions of software, which is often more affordable than a traditional license. In fact, many universities offer students access to cloud-based software for free or a nominal fee, giving them access to the tools they need without spending hundreds of dollars on licensing fees.

While the cloud may not be a cure for skyrocketing educational expenses, the tools and capabilities that it offers can help keep them in check.

2. Improved Communication and Collaboration

The communication and collaboration benefits of the cloud extend well beyond cost savings. The cloud offers opportunities for students to work together in ways that weren’t possible in the past. Teachers and students can have discussions, work on group projects, and share resources more efficiently through cloud services. Within the realm of computer education, the cloud allows students to create and share projects, which teaches both technical skills, but also supports problem-solving, communication, collaborative learning, and project design, all “soft skills” that are in demand for IT professionals. And of course, the cloud allows students to learn from others in geographically diverse areas, but it also improves access for students who might otherwise have barriers to higher education.

3. Better Security

Under federal laws, much of what happens in higher education qualifies as personal and confidential, and is therefore protected by privacy laws. Storing important documents on a personal computer or maintaining hard copies increases the risk of a FERPA violation. Using a secure cloud service to manage class work, grades, and other student information help reduce the likelihood of a violation. That doesn’t mean that university cloud services are impervious to attacks, but the security protocols used for online education applications and storage are generally much more advanced than typical consumer security.

This is important for student’s seeking an online master’s in computer science, who may be working on projects that could form the basis of a future business or development opportunity and do not want to lose their intellectual property. At the very least, for students studying computer science, IT security, or other related fields, cloud-based environments give them more hands-on, real-world experience that can be valuable in a future job search.

4. Real-Time Updates

One of the challenges of education is keeping materials and learning up-to-date with current trends, technology, and developments. Computer science students expect to have the most current resources and tools to ensure their degree is marketable. With the cloud, instructors and program developers can make real-time updates to the curriculum, add new resources, change textbook options, and do everything possible to allow students access to the most recent and relevant information.

5. Going Green

Environmental sustainability is a significant concern on college campuses these days, with some students choosing schools specifically because of their green initiatives and commitment to sustainability. Employing cloud services is a major part of green efforts; not only does using the cloud reduce the need for resources paper and ink, but cloud servers can be run more efficiently than typical on-site computing tools. By locating servers in a data center, institutions can lower energy consumption and costs, thereby reducing their overall carbon footprint.

Cloud computing has become a part of everyday life for most people, whether they even realize it or not. It’s already changed higher education in several ways — and will undoubtedly continue to do so as we move into the future.

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